Aceleron Essential Lithium Battery Test Installation Including Solar Arch and Solar Panels. 

Part 1:  Introducing the Aceleron Lithium Battery Demonstration Project in conjunction with Pro Marine Store Consultation.

The new Aceleron Essential LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate) battery opens up a world of opportunity for the sailing market, particularly for off grid and bluewater installations, where quality of each individual component is critical, where failure can have huge consequences if offshore, or away from somewhere where replacements can be bought. 

When dealing with the second to none technology on the market, the last case is often impossible, even if by land, as shipping in things like lithium batteries is next to impossible due to shipping laws concerning ‘Dangerous Goods’ that includes lithium batteries.

Pro Marine Store Consultancy Team. 

At Pro Marine Store, our consultancy team spend its time advising and supplying the best, most rugged and most proven technologies to the bluewater yachting market, and for anyone heading off on an extended cruise. 

The last thing any of us wants is to encounter a failure that affects safety and can even cancel the trip. With today's boats being so electricity-centric, and with the announcement that even the UKHO is to start withdrawing paper charts, the quality of our electrical installations is going to become crucial.

Every so often, a new product comes on the market that deserves a deeper dive and explanation as to why it might be suited to our highly demanding criteria as an off-shore power solution, and might even become a game changer. 

For something to be truly tested and recommended for marine use, it must first be installed as a test case, and this is what we are looking to do here.

The Aceleron Essential LiFePO4 Award-Winning Battery. 

The Aceleron Essential LiFePO4 battery is an award-winning new battery, offered by clean technology company Aceleron. It started when the co-founders dismantled and tested hundreds of battery packs and realised that batteries are not designed to be maintained, but simply to be scrapped into landfill at the end of life.

Anticipating a future with tonnes of unnecessary battery waste they designed a battery pack which is built with sustainability in mind. The world’s most sustainable lithium battery packs in a full ‘circular economy’ approach;- serviceable, upgradable and recyclable. 

The battery is based on a patented compression technology, which means its battery-cell 'Core' can be easily taken out of the unit and either. It can then be swapped out with a new and improved core for a complete upgrade of your battery, or serviced and returned to you as a fully renewed product with an extended life to keep waste and environmental impact to a minimum.

Whilst the green credentials of this battery are without question, and was one of the reasons it won the Environment Design Award at the prestigious DAME Awards at MetStrade 2022, the most compelling part of these batteries are the fact that they are made with the best and most highly tested components available on the market today.

Rather than being thrown together using generic cells and BMS components, each cell has been tested and installed into the core using state of the art analysis equipment. Therefore, when you buy an Essential Battery, in 12v, 24v, or 48v natively, you are getting the best made battery on the market.

Battery Test-Installation. 

We have created a test-installation, to model a typical high quality marine battery setup, using other brands that offer the best in their field also, like Blue Sea Systems, Oceanflex, Victron, EGIS, SunPower and LG solar panels.  

We are specifying a solar arch to hold the panels through our highly experienced stainless steel fabricator and long-time engineer, Nigel, of the YouTube Channel ‘Bleeding Rust’. 

This will also serve as demonstrating his outstanding skill in stainless welding and fabrication, and show how our marine consultancy team can advise and install the best for your yacht.  

The yacht for test fit-out is a 1978 Nicholson 35. This represents a typically affordable and reliable sailing yacht that the middle ground of sailors in the UK would consider when buying a yacht for offshore passage making and extended trips. 

The fit-out will show how this boat can easily house everything that is needed to create a modern, rugged and extremely resilient lithium house bank to power everything on their boat with the exception of engine starting (reasons explained later).  

The Nicholson 35 is a proven blue water capable encapsulated keel sloop, with excellent stability, sea handling and belt-and-braces design. It is similar to many yachts of the time, and is being used to show that even with limited space; an excellent system can be installed, giving the owner a massive capacity bank, high levels of solar regeneration, and great longevity in their system. 

We have already published some analysis pieces on lithium batteries; here they are:

Reasons to fit LiFePO4 Lithium Batteries for your Sailing Boat or Motor Yacht

Benefits of Switching to Lithium Batteries On-Board a Boat

In Part 2, we will talk about the various products used in this installation to support and distribute the power from these batteries.  We will also talk about the wiring diagram and philosophy of the installation.